Monday, May 14, 2012

The birth story is still coming, I promise. What with all the pumping and feeding and trying to sleep when the baby does (and visitors and laundry, dear god, the laundry will it ever end?), throw in a dog that is still acclimating to the change and keeping baby upstairs and a temperamental laptop, I get maybe an hour a day to be on the computer which is not nearly enough to do everything I need to do.

But in the interim . . .

It's shocking to realize my baby is already (almost) 2 weeks old. On one hand, she's been here forever and ever. On the other, what a terribly short time that is. I'm realizing the heartbreak of parenting a living child - the time flies so quickly and it is so ephemeral. Already, Vivienne is changing.

My little tiny girl had regained her birth weight by her one week appointment, and now she's visibly bigger (and heavier). She's getting a second chin and chubby arms and legs and her hands no longer look a size too big. Her hair is lighter (unsurprisingly, she's going to be a blonde child - DH was platinum blonde and I had dark blonde hair until late toddlerhood when it began darkening), and her eyes are changing too. It's still debatable whether they will stay grey like mine or turn green like DH's. She tries to hold her head up, eager to see the world around her.

I remember telling my mother last week that I don't want her to change, that she can't get bigger yet, that she's got to stay small forever, or at least long enough for me to enjoy it. Alas, time marches on and I can't quite get over a tiny bit of resentment at how much of it has been spent sleeping or attached to the pump. I try to make the most of the time she is alert and awake. I've spent hours just watching the expressions flit over her face (three guesses where my favorite nickname of 'Baby Fish Face' came from). She has the most gorgeous smile and there is also a grin and a sideways glance of the eyes that will be killer some day when they aren't just reflexes and ingrained survival instinct but are 'real' - though I'll happily coo over the expressions now, because they are so amazing.

So she's already begun to grow, and grow up, and as sad as that makes me I also can't wait for more. I can't wait to see how she reacts to the pool and going swimming and what she thinks of applesauce and pear puree and watching her discover things and begin moving and talking . . . I want to jump ahead and I want time to stop all at once.

It's different being a mother to a living child (perceptive, aren't I?) - the thing is that time did stop with Gabriel. There was only then and that was it. We only had a few minutes to cram in all the love of a lifetime. We never got to watch the expressions on his face, we never got to see what would happen next. I'll never know what his eye color would have been, nor what he would have liked or loathed. He is forever frozen in that moment of his life and his death, almost as frozen as a picture. The only thing we knew after is grief, and trying to piece together and remember what joy had come before. Whereas, with Vivienne, it's ongoing. She is vital, she moves, she breathes, she changes, she lives. We are not forever mourning that moment of loss, that snuffed potential - we are mourning each tiny moment even while anticipating the next. The anticipation, the expectation, the hope of the future, that is what is different.

I miss him terribly right now. I know he weighed heavily on DH, especially at the end of my pregnancy, but I was still in suspended animation. I knew then that what would weigh on me would be the common everyday things of life with a living baby, and I was right. Doing things with Viv, it reminds me of the things I didn't do with Gabe. The absence is magnified by her presence. Sometimes I think I feel a small presence, a little boy at my side peering over my shoulder, unsure what to make of this creature, unsure where he fits in now. Poor older brother, is it any easier being a spirit sibling?

And yet, the sadness is not lingering, not really. Perhaps it is lost in the exhaustion of a newborn, perhaps it's buried to erupt later. Perhaps there is simply too much joy in cuddling the flesh and blood that are tangible in my arms. If I kiss her every chance I can, and hold her close to my heart for an extra beat or two, well, that's not so strange, I expect.

Ah, I hear her stirring. It's nearly time for her next feeding and I need to pump. Again. But here are a couple of pictures. Somehow, we ended up with a completely gorgeous baby.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Forgive the brevity and lateness. Between new baby girl and internet and laptop issues, this is the first chance I've had to get online (seriously).

Details and pics to come later, promise.

For now though, vital statistics:

High blood pressure that refused to go down led to 24 hour collection, which I was told was negative, but actually did contain protein - enough for a 'mild pre-eclampsia' diagnosis. Even higher blood pressure led to overnight admission for monitoring and another 24 hour urine collection (increasing proteins) on Friday night/Saturday by a fill-in doc of the practice, followed by release to strict bedrest and follow up with my doctor on Monday.

That resulted in admission to the hospital for induction. My doc said that if she hadn't been on vacation, I would have already had the baby because she wasn't thrilled with the developing pre-eclampsia, no matter how mild it appeared to be.

Cervidil was started around 4:30 pm on April 30, exactly 39 weeks. There is a really funny (to me, anyway) story I'll tell later about my labor/delivery and how it was rather precipitate for what we had planned.

Vivienne made her debut at 8:17 am on May 1 after about an hour to an hour and a half of pushing. I was on mag sulfate, and between that and the sertraline in the last tri, they had NICU pediatriacs standing by in case of breathing difficulties. She was taken directly to the warmer where she scored a 6 on the 1 minute apgar (points removed for color and tone). Her breathing was fine, but no crying or fussing. At 5 minutes, her apgar was 8 (again, points removed for color and tone) and it was 9 at 10 minutes. They handed her to DH and finally told him it was normal for mag babies to be a little pale (he was getting really concerned). She pinked up fine and hasn't stopped moving or flailing since.

She weighed in at 7 lbs, 9 oz (ha! where was my monster baby?!) and she was 21 inches long. Initially, breastfeeding went well, subsequently we've had difficulties latching, which have been resolved by pumping and supplementing with formula (making all three of us much, much happier and more relaxed). We are trying to catch up sleep - the hospital, lovely as it was, wasn't conducive to it, since I had to spend an extra 24 hours on mag in bed in L&D (which isn't really designed for that, tbh). My mom came in the day she was born, my in-laws visited soon after. We have some awesome pictures. She's absolutely delightful in every way, and we couldn't be more in love.

Gabriel is very present in my mind, as I trace her gorgeous little face and see the familial similarities, as I hold her and remember holding him. The joy is undiluted, but the sadness is also present. Vivienne does not replace him, never would we dream of asking her to, but the hole in our hearts and lives is differently shaped now - stronger in some areas and more raw in others.

Still, our girl is wonderful, and we are existing in exhausted amazement.

"Now Rachel's weeping for the children she thought she could not bear, and she bears a sorrow that she cannot hide. And she wishes she was with them; she looks and they're not there. It seems that love comes for just a moment and it passes on by.And her sky is just a bandit swinging at the end of a hangman's noose, because he stole the moon and must be made to pay for it. And her friends say, 'My, that's tragic.' And she says, 'Especially for the moon.'And this is the world, as best as I can remember it."